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Don's first wife Pat died in 1981. He met Ivy when she was a fare in his taxi and for a few years they were happy together, but in 1991 he was driven away by Ivy's forceful personality; she was ruled by the ghosts of her past and sometimes treated Don like an afterthought. He had an on-off affair with Julie Dewhurst and crashed his car in a suicide bid when she broke it off. Don survived but his left foot was amputated.

After a short time living alone, Don moved back in with Ivy, as she'd turned to drink in his absence. Their marriage was effectively over and in 1994 Ivy decided she couldn't take any more and moved to a religious retreat, where she died the following year. Over the next two years, Don's life went from bad to worse; he bought MVB Motors with his partner Josie Clarke but she left him when the garage went bust. He became fixated with Mike Baldwin, who'd sold him the garage, and kidnapped Alma to make her see how Mike had wronged him. His taxi ended up plummeting into the canal but both passengers survived. Don then made Mike his target, trying to run him over with his own car, but he missed him and crashed into the viaduct. The car exploded in a ball of flame, killing him instantly.

"Ah, no sweat. Next fare's not till nine. Off on town then?" (First line, to Vera Duckworth)

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"It's no good talking to you is it Baldwin? You've got no conscience, you've got no shame. You're vermin, Baldwin. You're nowt but a nasty little bit of crawling vermin. There's only one way to deal to you, and that's just crush you, to smash you till there's nowt but a smear left." (Final line)